Theory Construction and Model-Building Skills A Practical Guide for Social Scientists

"This book provides young scientists with tools to assist them in the practical aspects of theory construction. We take an informal journey through the cognitive heuristics, tricks of the trade, and ways of thinking that we have found to be useful in developing theories-essentially, conceptualizations-that can advance knowledge in the social sciences. This book is intended to provide the instructor with a useful source for helping students come up with ideas for research and for fine-tuning the resultant theories that emerge from such thinking. An objective of this book is to move toward a needed balance in the emphases given to theory construction and theory testing"--